


Bright like Starlight

by pr0nz69



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions, Pocket Monsters: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon | Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon Versions
Genre: Abuse, Canon Rewrite, Character Study, Friendship, Gen, Human/Pokemon Relationship(s), Legendary Pokemon, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26570095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr0nz69/pseuds/pr0nz69
Summary: The symbiont-creature comes again and again. The creature soothes him with its vocalizations. He doesn't like the symbionts. He likes this symbiont-creature. He wants the symbiont-creature to stay.Forever...———A retelling of Nebby's journey across Alola with Lillie.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	Bright like Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Finally got around to posting my second zine piece! This was for the Pokemon Myths and Legends zine way back when. This is basically a mashup between Sun/Moon and USUM, because USUM introduced fun characters and great mechanics at the expense of derailing the plot and neutering Lusamine's character. (Yes, I'm still salty about it.)

Dark. Quiet.

_ Hurts _ —

Time passes. How much? More passes. Then—

_ Then _ —

Lights. Bright. Too bright. Can't see. He can't—

Then yellow. A pale creature. The creature has a long, yellow membrane. The creature looks like the symbiont. Smaller. The creature makes soft vocalizations. He doesn't understand. The vocalizations are pleasing. But the creature flees in fear—not of him. Of the other creature, yellow-membraned. The lissome one.

_ Scared _ .

_ Hurts _ .

-

The symbiont-creature comes again and again. The creature soothes him with its vocalizations. He doesn't like the symbionts. He likes this symbiont-creature. He wants the symbiont-creature to stay.

_ Forever _ ...

-

A loud noise, too loud. Not like the vocalizations, but the symbiont-creature is here anyway. He is afraid, but the creature vocalizes to him, and he is calmed. The creature breaks his prison, and he falls into the light. Soft appendages. Body heat. He presses closer, and the creature holds him tight.

Then lets go. Another prison, this one soft and warm. It slams against the creature's flank as it moves. Moves quickly. The creature pants for breath. More noises. A chase. Danger. He senses it. He squirms out of the prison.

Other creatures. He's afraid. He doesn't want his symbiont-creature to expire.

With the last of his strength, he sends them both far away.

-

Lillie.

That is what she is called.  _ She _ —Lillie is female. Lillie is not a symbiont. Lillie is human. Humans are creatures of Alola. Alola is far from his home. Lillie knows this. She has promised to help him go home.

Lillie calls him Nebby. He doesn't know what it means in her language. He likes the way she speaks it, though, with such softness and warmth. He will be her Nebby.

Lillie lives and works with a human called Kukui and his mate Burnet. They are not Lillie's family, but they want to help. Lillie holds him tight as she tells him of human kindness, and he understands. This is kindness.

Time passes. It passes quicker than before now that he has Lillie. Every night, she tells him he's a blessing and hugs him to sleep.

-

Time really passes so quickly in Alola. Lillie brings him to a place that feels like power, feels like home. Creatures like him—Pokémon, he's learned—attack him, and he cowers because he knows he is weak in this place, in this form.

Another human covers him, protecting him with her own body. He tries to protect her in turn, but he doesn't know his own strength, what he can do here, and he only puts them in more danger. Another creature catches them as they fall, and it frustrates him that he can't protect these kind humans.

The Pokémon that saves them is powerful. He wants to communicate with it, ask it for a way home, but it leaves too quickly, almost like it knows, like it's challenging him, but he isn't ready to follow.

The human who saved him is called Selene, and she is about to become a Pokémon trainer. Lillie seems to like her. He does, too.

-

Lillie keeps him in her bag, and it isn't uncomfortable, but he'd rather be out enjoying the light with her and Selene and Hau—another Pokémon trainer. Lillie says it's dangerous for him to be seen, but he doesn't understand because he likes humans very much.

He doesn't think about the lissome creature. It can't have been human.

There's a meadow filled with beautiful yellow flowers. He loves yellow. He goes to play in it, but Lillie doesn't like that. She makes him get back in the bag. He sulks when he does it and makes sure she sees it.

But even from the bag, Alola is beautiful, and before he goes back home, he wants to explore more of it with Lillie and the others.

-

He thinks Lillie wants to become a Pokémon trainer, too, but she won't admit it.

They visit Burnet on Akala Island, and in front of her lab, Lillie takes a stance like Selene and Hau do. He doesn't understand at first, not until she tells him to “splash” in a firm voice, and that's when he realizes it. And he  _ wants _ to battle for her, but he doesn't know how. Maybe neither of them is quite so good at this.

They both get a little embarrassed after Selene shows up in the middle of it, but he can almost feel Lillie's resolve burning with his as she scoops him back into her bag.

-

They visit the Ruins of Life, but the guardian does not appear. He thinks he should be frustrated, but he's having too much fun to really mind it.

-

They can't even get to the Ruins of Abundance on Ula'ula Island, buried deep as it is in a stretch of heat and wind and sand. Lillie seems more upset about it than he is. He wonders if he'll ever make it home. He wonders if he wants to.

They rest at a place where human children stay, and it's such fun to be free of the bag to play with them! They run all about chasing him, never catching him (he has lots of practice), and Lillie smiles and laughs and tells him how she wishes they could stay like this, forever.

But of course they can't, and even he knows that now. What they fled from all those months ago catches up to them now, and to protect the children, he and Lillie go back to the place they first met. He remembers it well, too white, too bright, and full of creatures who will hurt them.

Not all humans are kind.

They reunite with Lusamine—the lissome one—and she is human, she is Lillie's mother. He can't remember his own mother, but she can't have been cruel like this. Lillie has never been cruel like this.

Lusamine takes him away, and the pain of separation is worse than anything she can ever do to him in that crate.

-

It hurts. To use his powers like this hurts, but he will bear it.

To create a wormhole back home takes more power than he can hold in his current form. He must change. He must adapt. Lillie cries for him. He won't die like this.

It scares her to see him in his new form. She thinks he's hurt. He can't move, can't vocalize to let her know he's okay, he's only in metamorphosis. He needs to coalesce his power, regather his strength. Once he does, he can protect her.

He  _ will _ protect her.

-

The song is, somehow, nostalgic. Like a melody he heard when he was very young, but he can't ever recall having had such a thing played for him.

Lillie and Selene play beautifully. The notes of the Sun Flute and the Moon Flute glide together like stars rising early in the crispness of late noon. He feels something awaken inside him, a power that has slept dormant all his life. It pulls him to it. He escapes from the bag for the final time.

A head forms. Limbs grow. His body flexes. He stands in the glow of the sunset, shakes his great mane, and roars for the first time.

“Solgaleo,” Lillie whispers.

He wants to run to her. He wants to be held by her, though he knows he's too big for that now. Any contact will do. He'll curl up around her and protect her.

Then—a wormhole. Another power. He fights. He's strong now. He can win. Then—

_ Then _ —

Darkness. Pain.

-

It hurts. Where is he? It's dark. What's happening?

A cry, piercing and agonized. He recognizes it. The Blinding One. The humans call it Necrozma. It comes from his world. From home. Why is he home? Lillie—where is Lillie?

Its grip on him is tight, forcing him from consciousness. From his new, powerful body. He wants to fight back, but he can't; it's taken his light, taken his body prisoner.

_ Lillie _ —

He rails against its rule. How dare it take his new power from him? Away from Lillie? It isn't fair, it isn't right—

It cries out again. The pain returns, almost crippling, but—

He realizes now that this pain is not his.

-

He understands now.

He understands what happened to the Blinding One. To Necrozma.

It's suffering.

It takes him to the top of the tower in the world with no light. It waits for the humans. He doesn't know why. He worries for Lillie, for Selene. He tries to break free, but Necrozma only takes more of his light to ease its own pain.

And then the pain stops. The Blinding One regains its true form. That's all it wants. But its body is damaged, and its light was taken by those that lived here long ago.

Selene arrives, and they battle. He doesn't like this. He doesn't like fighting Lillie's dearest friend, unwilling though he is, and he doesn't like that Necrozma is only hurting itself further.

Selene wins. He feels the separation as a relief, and yet he can't stand that Necrozma has to suffer on its own again.

He suffered alone, once.

-

Gradually, his wounds mend. His heart struggles to.

Lillie does her best to tend to him. He loves being with her. But some part of him remains empty until it festers with sorrow.

Selene visits one day when they're resting on Mahalo Trail. And he senses it. Necrozma. He raises his head. Lillie notices.

Perhaps it would be best if he goes with Selene, she says. With Necrozma.

He loves Lillie so much. He doesn't want to leave her. He shows her that, bumping his head against her. She smiles, bright like starlight.

“I'm not a trainer,” she gently reminds him. “Not yet. Someday, once I'm stronger, maybe we can... But for now, Necrozma needs you more than I do. So please, Nebby...”

He understands. He nuzzles her with his large face. Then he turns to Selene. He will fight. He will fight for Lillie, for Necrozma.

For himself.

Exhausted, he enters the Poké Ball gladly.

-

Necrozma's learning to stand on its own.

Its body is still weak. Irreparably damaged, it probably always will be. But its learning the value of kindness. Of sharing what they have. He is happy to lend it his power and soothe its pain.

Selene takes them to a sacred place where the moon hangs low like a golden disc and the water is clear as the heavens above. He emerges from his ball to stand atop the pedestal and look up into infinity.

A cry resonates, not from him. But it's familiar. He senses something, like another part of himself.

She appears before him, transcending dimensions. Her wings stretch wide, translucent as ghosts. Her eyes are his. Her aura is his. Their union is fleeting and fruitful. New life emerges. The cycle begins anew.

This time, there is no Lusamine. This time,  _ he _ will be for the child as Lillie was for him. As Lillie still is. He can't wait to return to her, to show her all that he has become. He roars joyously into the night, a little impatient. Selene laughs from behind him, cradling Cosmog in her arms, and assures him that Lillie is proud of him, will  _ always _ be proud of him, no matter how far apart they may be.

He looks back to the moon, the same moon watching over Lillie, and knows this to be true.


End file.
